Conversations with Colleagues: (Steve Myles, American D.O)

I've decided do start including communicae with colleagues as posts on this site. The intent is that fellow manual medicine practitioners here may glean inpiration and insight from the strenths of years of experience that our colleagues have gained.

STRIX:
I have a small rehab team here. We train our staff and pass on anything we gain.
Physical therapy as a profession here is rather.. poorly updated. It is only beginning to pick up on manual med / manipulative skills. That puts my team at a fair leading edge insofar as the functional gains they can deliver for our patients, but leaves them with a hunger to pick up anything they can from anywhere they can. The way things look, we are likely to go in and out the country as frequently and as long as necessary in the next few years to pick up the skillsets for manip. As we find even good orthopedic manip protocols to be often less remarkable than OMM / OMT, we hope to learn from as many osteopaths as we can. We are looking for a synthesis, or at least what works best. Thus far, All manual medicine looks similar in principles and practice somewhere down the line. Our biggest bottomline is still to help our patients as best we can. It's still sadly fairly common for patients here to waste 18 sessions to go nowhere with the predominant PT practice here. The reason? It's modality based. Almost fully. That's the second thing we hope to do here - to push for an evolution in manual practice.

STEVE:
I empathize with you. In osteopathy, we learn first to analyze the strain pattern and decide where and why to begin. Then, we may do the correction using whatever paradigm appears appropriate. Diagnosis first and foremost, the treatment choice is just the tool.

STRIX:
Most PTs and MDs here have even never heard of visceral manip. And there are sadly no DO institutions here.

My practice also includes primary care and occupational medicine. It is at heart integrative. I however do not have any homeopathic training as yet. We have medicare / TRICARE coverage here. Dozens of HMOs have birthed and died since 2000. HM insurance is neither standard nor required.

I hope this background makes sense enough for you to help us out with recommendations?

STEVE:
I am familiar with the plight of conscientious physicians and health practitioners working in a system that is more money and resource management than patient care.

I used to do courses (for about 20 yrs), taking health professionals in a few weekends from knowing nothing about osteopathic analysis to learning some principles to apply to any occasion. If you teach someone a technique and the patient's condition doesn't apply, the practitioner is lost. If you teach principles, then the practitioner can always figure out what to do and where to begin.

To start with homeopathy, you might consider the Homeopathic Course - I review about 20 remedies in an easy-to-learn format. After you have had success with this acute prescribing for about 6 months, you might contact me for other resources to expand your knowledge.

Both osteopathy and homeopathy are easily each lifetime studies. The amazing contributions you make to your patients health keep you enthusiastically studying and learning.

I seem to have started another book here, Strix. If we can get the time zones straight, perhaps we could set a time to talk on the phone.

Take care, Strix.

Steve